Do words matter?

[Dill]

(05-31-2017, 11:12 AM)Vlad Wrote: Funny how Trump haters conveniently omit the second part of his so called "Muslim ban".
Why can't you display some integrity and admit that Trump proposed a ban on foreigners from Muslim nations until a better system of vetting could be put in place? In other words a moratorium...probably to big a word for Trumps vocabulary.
Incidentally his revised executive order...a travel ban on 7 nations that Obama also had on his list of "nations of concern" was rejected by a scumbag liberal activist judge who based his reasoning solely on what Trump said during his campaign, not the law. That was classic judge playing liberal activist. Trump had the Constitutional right to do what he did.

Demeaning ethnic minorities. You mean when he said "Mexico doesn't send its best, it sends killers and rapists"?  Devastating. Some Mexicans got their feelings hurt.
Trump received 30% of the Hispanic vote. Very good for a Republican.
Seems many Mexicans understood what Trump was trying to convey. Too bad you didn't.

The wall. Illegal crossings have dropped 40% and arrests up 39%. Fantastic news. Maybe we don't need no stinking wall after all.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/05/26/white-house-30000-criminal-aliens-apprehended-by-ice-in-100-days/

Glad to see you are calling it what it was--a MUSLIM BAN. That is what makes the ban unconstitutional as well as short-sighted and logically inconsistent.

Why would anyone be showing "integrity" by supporting an unconstitutional ban because it was not permanent?

And Trump does not have a Constitutional right to violate the Constitution. That is one difference between an authoritarian dictator and a president in government structured by checks and balances. Rush and Hannity exclude Trump's stated intention from his reason for the ban. No reason why a judge should.

The point of the remainder of your post is unclear. I guess you are arguing that some hispanics, who are not all Mexican, voted for Trump so he couldn't really have been demeaning them when associating Mexicans with killers and rapists. They understood "what he was trying to convey." This gets back to the theme of the thread--do words matter? They certainly matter less if you can always assume Trump meant something other than what he said, something his followers "understand" if no one else does.  What they understand is either never clearly articulable or in direct contradiction with what Trump actually said. 

Words do matter to some degree or we would not be seeing so many people, including White House staff, constantly walking back and explaining what Trump "really meant."  Week to week for months now.  Words don't matter so much to Trump supporters, since if they did they would tie Trump and supporters to logical consistency, thought out positions, knowledge, competence. All of that, and the standards they imply, have fallen to the wayside since Trump's election.